


you've seen the difference (and it's getting better all the time)

by hi_hello_hey_there



Series: you don't have to say i love you (to say i love you) [16]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 80's Music, Gen, Healing, Nick is Frustrated, Nick's Parents are Chad Danforth and Ryan Evans, Pre-Relationship, Psychology, Resentment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28839276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_hello_hey_there/pseuds/hi_hello_hey_there
Summary: "Go back to sleep."
Relationships: Flynn & Nick (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: you don't have to say i love you (to say i love you) [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942267
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	you've seen the difference (and it's getting better all the time)

**Author's Note:**

> When I realized Sunday had come and gone and I hadn't posted anything, it was far too late for me to haul my ass out of bed to post. So take this now! Un-beta'd, we die like men. Enjoy!

Nick didn’t really realize just how little sleep he ran on until he started getting tired all the time. Once the doctors cleared him to go home after an entirely too long hospital stay (in Nick’s opinion — his dads wanted him to stay longer), he wasn’t even allowed to return to school. It sucked that he was essentially on lockdown, only Carrie, his cousin Kayla, and his lacrosse buddies coming to visit consistently after their school days or practices. Sometimes Julie would get her dad to drive her over, but since she herself was on crutches until last week, that didn’t happen often.

The first few days home, he was angry. In the hospital, he was hardly alone for more than half an hour before one of his dads came back or a nurse came to check his vitals or Carrie showed up with homework. He didn’t have any time to process the extent of what happened to him outside of the repercussions it had on other people. But once he was home, Dad had to go back to working long hours choreographing for a show in Hollywood and Poppa was coaching his basketball team, the girls starting late because of their hectic class schedules. When the nanny, Isa, brought home Becca, his sister mostly ignored him and Isa would check on him once when she got there and once when dinner was almost ready.

Sure, sometimes one dad or the other was home early and they roped him into conversation or light busy work, but for the most part, he was by himself with nothing and no one but his thoughts. The downside to that, of course, being he couldn’t escape it. So he was angry, angrier than he had ever been in his whole sixteen years of existence. Angry at Caleb for hijacking his life and making a mess of it and his body, angry that his sister doesn’t trust him anymore, angry that his parents don’t let him out of this glorified cage of a house for more than a twenty minute accompanied outing to the backyard. Angry that sometimes his thoughts aren’t his own, that he still gets flashes into that monster’s head. He’s angry that everyone is treating him like he’s fragile, angrier still than his body  _ feels  _ so fragile. He’s recovering, but slowly, much slower than anticipated, and everything is in pain all the time. Not even the extra strength ibuprofen helps.

Yet, after that, after festering in his fury, it fizzled out and all Nick was left with was hurt, but mostly just exhaustion. He misses the way his life used to be, how Becca would bounce into his room, tea pot in hand and tutu on ready for a party. He misses how his friends never hesitated to punch him on the shoulder after every particularly bad joke he made. He even misses Carrie’s snark, the harmless ones that have disappeared when she’s around him. All the emotional processing and homework catch up and physical healing drain him and he’s lucky if he’s not completely conked out by the time Dad comes home to relieve Isa of her duties and finish getting dinner on the table. It’s at these times he wonders how he used to go to school, finish his homework, go to lacrosse practices and then games, and have time for a social life without running out of energy even though he only slept five hours a night.

“Nick,” his Poppa calls from downstairs, shaking Nick from his trance. He wonders for a moment why Poppa is home and then he remembers he has the day off today. “Flynn’s here. I’m going to send her up.”

“Okay,” he calls back.

Everything really changed, though, when he was allowed back at school. For a few days, he and his dads argued about whether or not he should be going back full time, Nick in favor, his dads against. It took him telling them that he needed the distraction, the normality of going to school, or he’d go crazy for real. So he started back up at Los Feliz High. At first, he was instructed to use his wheelchair to get around, as his legs, for whatever reason, had taken the brunt of the magical abuse (some symbolic remnant of not being in control of his own body for months?), even though he had started using forearm crutches at home. No matter what, though, he was glad to be back at school. He still gets funny or sympathetic looks in the halls from people he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t bother him.

What really shocked him was when Mrs. Armstrong, his psychology teacher, had paired he, Carrie, and Flynn for a group project. He thought it might be a tense time with his unfortunate ass caught in the middle. He still remembers the sudden falling out Carrie had with Julie and subsequently Flynn and that Carrie and Julie were starting to make up for lost time. But what about her and Flynn? His fears had been assuaged pretty quickly when they both approached his desk from opposite sides of the room and immediately began chatting with one another about their ideas and laughing at jokes they cracked. It was… very weird for Nick to adjust to. Very.

A light knock sounds at his door. “Can I come in?” Flynn says from the other side.

Nick looks helplessly down at the bed where he’d spread out his homework in hopes that seeing just how little he actually has to do would inspire him to get it done already. He has his legs under the covers, for god’s sake. There’s nothing he can do about it aside from stack his books up on his nightstand and gather his papers up into a neat pile. “Yeah, come in,” he answers. The door opens and shuts quickly, Flynn offering a kind smile and a wave as she fiddles with her backpack straps. “You can sit at the desk, or up here if you like.”

“Thanks,” she says, crossing the room to sit at his desk and placing her bag on the floor. She spins around to look at him. “Sorry I’m late. GSA ran over and then I had to stop and get gas and there was more traffic than I was expecting.”

“No big deal. Let’s get to work,” he says, reaching for his psych notebook. “You mind if I keep the music on?”

Soft 80s pop is filtering out of his speakers, the sound so nostalgically comforting and reminding him on when Poppa used to play it in the car when he was little. Flynn shakes her head, pulling the textbook out of her bag. “Not at all. Carrie has rehearsal today, right?”

“Yeah. They have a gig tomorrow so Dirty Candy called an emergency practice.” Nick can’t help the fond eye roll and it makes Flynn giggle. “What did we end up deciding on in class the other day?”

She flips to a page towards the middle of the textbook and shows him. “We’re going to break down Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages and give pop culture examples of characters who exemplify each stage. Carrie is going to work on the first three, I’m doing the middle three, and you can do the last two stages.”

Nick doesn’t fail to notice he’s been given the lightest load and suppresses the urge to grimace, instead saying, “Sounds great.”

They work in silence for a bit, the synth guitar chords of Everybody Wants to Rule the World echoing gently in the background, while Nick reads about the generativity versus stagnation stage. He’s copying notes about how care is the basic virtue associated with this stage when Flynn makes a confused sound. “What’s up?” he asks, already feeling fatigued even though he’s only done a half hour of work.

“I don’t understand this,” she says, picking up her textbook and joining him on the bed. She curls one leg under her when she sits on top of the comforter, leaning in to show him where she’s having trouble. “Was the table part of Erikson’s identity versus role confusion?”

Nick tries desperately to ignore the heat blooming on the apples of his cheeks as he catches a whiff of her perfume, something light and airy and altogether very Flynn. He reads where she’s pointing: a graphic depicting the differences between identity achievement, foreclosure, diffusion, and moratorium. “Oh, well sorta.” Flynn gives him a funny look so he elaborates. “Erikson wrote about the identity crises of this stage, obviously, but James Marcia developed these specific ideas based on his writings.”

“So it would be okay to include them?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s just an elaboration on Erikson,” Nick says, shrugging.

“How do you remember all this?” Flynn says laughingly, shooting him a grateful smile before standing to grab her notebook. He fully expects her to sit back down at his desk, but she returns, taking up her previous spot and stretching her legs out in front of her, their shoulders knocking lightly. “This okay?”

Nick has to drag his eyes away from his notebook where he had forced himself to look so he wouldn’t stare at her for what she’s doing. “Yeah.” It comes out about an octave too high so he clears his throat. “Yeah. This is fine.” What is wrong with him?  _ She’s just here to work on a project  _ he rationalizes with himself. And besides, it’s not like he likes her like that. Right? They’re hardly even friends.

They fall back into the silence that had occupied the room before, but now with Flynn so close, her body heat seeping through his clothes, and a slow song playing over the stereo, his eyelids feel heavy. He tries to will himself to stay awake, but the efforts prove fruitless, as he’s soon lulled to sleep.

~ ~ ~

Nick hears humming. It’s gentle and quiet and beautiful. He snuggles closer to his pillow and enjoys the sound before he realizes his pillow doesn’t usually feel like a knitted sweater. His eyes snap open and he realizes that what he’s laying on is not, in fact, his pillow. It’s Flynn’s shoulder. And he fell asleep on her.

He lifts his head as slowly as he can let himself to try and ease the embarrassment he can feel radiating off of himself. It doesn’t really work as the first thing out of his mouth is a completely mortified, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”  _ Nice going, Nick. _

Flynn just chuckles lightly. “It’s no problem. I was enjoying  _ I Melt With You _ and the warmth.”

Well,  _ that _ does absolutely nothing to tame the blush running down his neck. The song changes from Modern English to Time After Time, a comfort song of his, and he starts to relax. “Still,” he says, running his hands over his face. “We’re supposed to be doing a project and I just crashed.”

“Hey,” she says, prying his wrist away and squeezing gently. “You’re healing. You need to cut yourself some slack. Julie started getting restless halfway through wearing her cast, always trying to do more than she was ready for, and you’ve got a longer road ahead of you than she did. I know it sucks and you probably feel babied, but you need to give yourself time. People don’t want to make it harder for you to recover.”

Nick is just staring at her by the time she’s done with her speech. How she managed to so eloquently sum up exactly what he’s feeling, he’ll never know. He lets out a shaky sigh as the chorus of the song starts. “I know. I still hate it.”

The corner of Flynn’s mouth quirks up. “And that’s perfectly valid. I’d hate it, too, if we’re being honest.” She seems to contemplate something briefly before releasing his wrist, her hand traveling down to his own and intertwining their fingers. **“Go back to sleep.”**

“We have a project to work on,” he says as a yawn tears its way out of his system. He fights through it to say, “I’m awake now.”

“Mm-hmm,” Flynn responds disbelievingly. “We’ve done enough work for today. This isn’t due for another month.” She’s already closing up books and notebooks, moving them to his nightstand before returning her hand to his. “Now, if you won’t sleep, at least lay down. We can just chat if you want.” She pats her shoulder with her free hand.

Nick finds himself chuckling at her antics instead of feeling the usual humiliation he would in a situation like this. “Yeah, okay.” He puts his head on her shoulder and she immediately flops hers on top of his. “So what do you want to talk about?”

“How about the fact that my chem class is going to be the death of me?” The answer comes too quickly for her to have not been thinking about this already and it makes him snort. So they talk about her chem class and his Italian homework and their sisters and the phantoms and everything in between. It’s… nice. He hasn’t had a conversation that didn’t have an undertone of pity in a long time and he appreciates Flynn thinking of his wellbeing. A soft smile makes its way to his face as he listens to her rant about Parker’s newest boyfriend and what a lameass he is, feeling truly at ease for the first time in months.

**Author's Note:**

> Parker is Flynn's older sister for those of you just joining us. And for those of you who read tags, mayhaps there's a little spoiler in there ;) My sister made me watch Five Feet Apart yesterday so there was no room in my tiny little, touch-starved brain to be editing. Also, my classes start literally tomorrow, so maybe my writing will increase, maybe it will decrease, but I've written ahead through the end of February, so we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Title of the story comes from [I Melt With You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuN6gs0AJls&ob=av2e&mod=article_inline) by Modern English. Prompt requests are open from [this list](https://p0ck3tf0x.tumblr.com/post/98502010026/one-hundred-ways-to-say-i-love-you) except for 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 26, 31, 33, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 48, 49, 50, 53, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 82, 83, 86, 91, 92, 98, and 99. You can leave a comment here or send me a message on tumblr. That's all for now, my lovelies. Have a wonderful week and thanks for reading!
> 
> main: [hi-hello-hey-there](https://hi-hello-hey-there.tumblr.com/)  
> side: [toziers-token](https://toziers-token.tumblr.com/)
> 
> love, blue


End file.
